When it comes to water from hydrofracking, the question of safety is murky at best. The Chemical Cocktail of Fracking Fluid For many folks the big baddie of hydraulic fracturing, also called hydrofracking or fracking, is fracking fluid — the mixture of water, sand, and chemicals that’s injected deep below the surface to fracture the…

Wanted: Natural gas industry volunteers. The job: Provide the data that will determine if your shale gas operations actually give off a lot more greenhouse gases than your industry “clean skies” image would suggest. That’s one of the main recommendations released this morning by a key U.S. advisory panel that the Obama administration established to…

One of the big debates in energy today is about the hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” of natural gas deposits. Various groups have already taken entrenched positions and the crossfire of arguments pro and con has begun. For the casual observer the arguments and facts must be confusing as they try to form their own informed…

I love this time of year. With another school year coming to an end, the new crop of interns has again arrived at the Pace Global. It is instructive to watch as they adapt their living habits and work behavior from the academic world to that of a bustling business office. For me, they provide…

A smoking gun in the form of methane isotopes links the two. Shale Gas: Game Changer or Potential Problem? The abundant, cleaner-burning fossil fuel known as shale gas has been hailed as a bridge fuel that’ll allow the transition from coal to a renewable-fueled future. Not only that, drilling for shale gas has propped up…

Does the good outweigh the bad? The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s report on “Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2009” was officially released on March 31st. Two of its key conclusions: Total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases were down by about 5.8 percent relative to 2008 — a…

For the past 35 years, the U.S. energy supply condition can be described as “precarious”, at best. But, over the past 5 years the Energy Sector in the US has been undergoing unprecedented change, spurred by a number of factors including a revolution in new energy technologies, rapid shifts in consumer attitudes, and the discovery…